Is the creditor required to send a satisfaction of judgement to the debtor after a garnishment is paid in full or can they request a fee for...

Question

Is the creditor required to send a satisfaction of judgement to the debtor after a garnishment is paid in full or can they request a fee for this.

Answer

Satisfaction of judgment recording fees are only $5, charged by the clerk of courts. Without paying it, the judgment will forever appear on your credit at open and in collection. Therefore, do you really want to fight over who pays it, and/or carries it to the clerk's office? As an alternative, I suppose that you could just ask them to send you the original and take care of this yourself. One other thought, however, if you have paid off a judgment in full via garnishment, is that you might be able to get the money back (at least the amount paid within the last 90 days) by filing bankruptcy and then following it up with an adversary lawsuit against the creditor. You ability to keep it, however, would depend upon proper your exemptions being properly claimed by your attorney. That would cause the judgment satisfaction to be withdrawn, however.

Do not assume that I am your attorney because of my response here, so I will not be taking any action on your case without additional arrangements. See fifteen years of other past answers at http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/53401-wi-jay-nixon-1529181/answers.html?sort=recency http:// or at www./answers/search/attorney/jknixon AVVO answers at http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/53401-wi-jay-nixon-1529181/answers.html?sort=recency.